My Music

     So I was going through my email inbox and deleting stuff when I came across an email from myself titled "laptop stuff".  When I opened it I was very surprised to find recordings of me playing some of my favorite songs.  I'm not sure when these were recorded but it must have been sometime in the last two years.  I uploaded them to YouTube so just click the link for your listening pleasure:)

 

Here Comes The Sun

Fell In Love Without You

Moon River

A Comet Appears

Real Love

     And lastly I have a music video that my little sister directed, edited and came up with all the ideas for, but happened to have me sing in it haha.  Because she did all the work it's posted on her channel and not mine so just in case you haven't seen it here's the link!

Love Club

Thanks for watching and listening!

  

It's Possible

     It's April.  April always makes me think of the April I was packing up to go home after my first (and only as of right now) semester at college.  In my head that wasn't so long ago but in actuality its been four years.  Isn't it crazy how our minds freeze frame sometimes?  Here's an example that I've encountered as I've been doing physical therapy; as I do the exercises I think "oh this should be easy" but when I try I can hardly do it the first time.  My mind still thinks of me as a fit athletic person.  When I say that out loud it makes no sense because I have had chronic symptoms all my life, so why would I think of myself as athletic?  Well there was a small portion of my life that one of my besties and I would go to the gym and I loved it.  There was even one Saturday that we ran the equivalent of a half marathon on the track at the gym.  I even had pretty toned arms from driving a car without power steering.  Something in the back of my head has always thought of this sick part of my life as a "phase".  That all the sickness, pain, fainting, and mostly the being bedridden would pass and I would be okay.  Though this thought was NOT always at the forefront of my mind it was always there, sometimes buried, but there none the less.  And guess what?  I was right.
     This is not to say that I'm magically better or that today hasn't been hard, but I am okay.  I think thinking of myself as the fit, gym going girl I once was helped me pull out of where I was months ago.  I've been saying for a few years to my parents, "I just need a leg up.  A little bit of help so my body doesn't try and kill me.  I can do all the hard work after that myself.".  Well I got that leg up, with the medications I'm on now and even more importantly with physical therapy.  I needed someone who understood the physiology of my conditions in conjunction with exercising.  In the past I would exercise and get intense chest pain, coughing until I could hardly breathe and pass out.  I knew that exercise was what would help me the most but if it killed me in the process I couldn't really get myself motivated to do it haha.  The huge change with physical therapy is that I CAN exercise now because I start out laying down.  Peddling while laying down for a couple minutes increases your preload, which means you then have enough blood flow to sit up and do the recumbent bike for a few minutes.  Following that with a couple more minutes laying down and you're golden.
     As I've been doing physical therapy the past two months its lead to so much more functionality over all.  I even upped my Fitbit step goal to 2,300 and I've been getting that and then some most days.  In the last couple weeks there has probably only been one or two days that I have spent the whole day in bed, other than that I'm trying to be up and around more.  Even if that means dragging a folding chair around with me so I can sit instead of stand, my world has gotten so much bigger than my four bedroom walls.  I have been doing a lot of cleaning and dejunking with this new found energy.  Sounds like a weird thing to be excited about after being stuck in bed for so long but I've got to tell you I love getting rid of stuff.  I love organizing things and seeing them all in there specific places.  I love getting things done and I love planning new projects.  And when I'm all tired out from cleaning I knit.  I just finished knitting six bunny softies for a neighbor to give to her great-grandbabies for Easter, which was fun.
     The only problem I have found with getting better is I want everyday to be better than the last and sometimes its not that simple.  I've been waiting years, no decades, for someone to explain to me what is happening with my body and better yet, how to manage it.  And now I have doctors who can.  Even if the road to managing it is hard, I can do it.  I don't need easy, I just need possible.  And it is. It is now possible;)      

Grandpa Wallace

As many of you know I lost my grandpa about a week ago, and as I plan to attend his funeral this weekend I find myself reflecting.  Grief is such an odd thing isn’t it?  Somehow I feel that our own grief can feel more or at least different than those around us, because if everyone was feeling the same how is it that the world still spins on?  That sounds quite dramatic now that I’ve put it in words.  It’s just that he was doing well and I just saw him and now he isn’t here anymore.  I’m not at all saying that I loved my grandpa more than anyone else in the world because I know that all my siblings and cousins adored my sweet grandpa, but we did have a special bond.  Now before that sounds snobish or like I’m the best or whatever, let me explain.  

I am the third child out of five siblings.  I have been born into a very intelligent and somewhat mild mannered family.  I’m not saying I’m stupid or anything but academics have never really been my jam, I never enjoyed school and I am not mild mannered.  Now obviously no one told me that the way I am was wrong but as a child you tend to think that what you’re surrounded with is normal and I was so different than my family.  Back then I couldn’t see the huge benefit of my kind family, but thinking about it now if I’d had had a sibling more like me we probably would have been at each other throats all of the time.  My siblings can put up a good argument but they’re not so hotheaded as I can be and I see that as a blessing now.

I always felt incredibly loved but now I think I unconsciously felt like the odd man out a bit.  Which brings me to my point; my grandpa valued and even encourage the very things that I thought made me odd.  Grandpa Wally valued and praised me for my tenacity, spirit and feistiness. He taught me that I could learn even when I didn’t believe it of myself.  School was very hard for me as a kid, I continuously struggled with reading all through elementary school, and that struggle made me lose some confidence in learning.  Grandpa didn’t care that I couldn’t quite read yet, it didn’t matter that times tables were the hardest thing in the world, he believe that I was capable.  As my siblings and cousins will remember that he would let us ride his horse Tera by ourselves when we were only about 3.  Granted we were in a small corral, and she was the perfect kid’s horse but it did feel like I was being trusted to be in charge of a huge animal.  I’ve always liked being in charge and though I was no better a rider than my siblings, in my head I was and that gave confidence.

I remember going up for about a week every summer as a kid, with either my family or my cousins who are similar ages.  My grandparents have owned a farm in Idaho for my who life.  To give you an idea of my grandpa he is a little bit of a quiet John Wayne type.  A good ‘ole cowboy, not much of a talker and a hard worker.  He was 87 when he passed away and just this last summer he raised cattle like he has every year.  It was only about a month ago that he sold some of his land because “irrigating 13 acres might be getting a little tough”.  One tough cookie right?:)  Well on these summer visits grandma would usually plan some fun crafty thing that we could do inside with her and I remember always asking “but what’s grandpa doing?”.  She’d usually reply with “he’s going out to irrigate” or “feeding the cows”, no matter her answer I always told her that I’d head out with grandpa.  I now realise that she could’ve taken that offensively but I never stayed in long enough to find out.  I would run out to the corral where the four wheeler was parked, but before we could go out and about it was always my job to open the gate while grandpa drove through.  He’d wait while I closed the gate and then I’d jump up in front and pretend to steer as he drove.  After a few years he started letting me drive.  He taught me about how the irrigation worked, he taught me how to catch a fish and not long after he told me that I needed to learn how to gut it.  He let me ride Tera out in the pasture and even out on the road following him as he rode Rascal.  He had me drive his truck back and forth between the barn and the house so I would know how to drive a stick shift.  Once when he was about 80 he even struggled with a bucking horse to keep her from rearing up while I was on her.  Admittedly I probably shouldn’t have gotten on a horse that I knew so little about but by the time I thought about it more I was already in the saddle and she was rearing up.  I know I could have suffered worse injuries had grandpa not grabbed the lead rope and wrestled with her to stay near the ground while I jumped off.  She did back up onto my leg before I could get off the fence and I had an amazing bruise for weeks but it would have been so much worse without grandpa’s help. 

In later years he prayed for my health at every prayer.  He held my hand and sang “Michelle, my belle, these are words that go together well” while I laid half conscious on the couch.  When I came to a little more he looked at me with a tear in his eye and said “We just love our Michelle so much.”  He didn’t even mind the flight of stairs he had to climb to visit me when I couldn’t leave my room.

It was only a few months ago that I had a terrible nightmare that Grandpa Wally died.  It shook me up pretty good, but then because I was thinking of him I wrote him letter, just a simple thank you for being an amazing grandpa.  After he received it he called me to tell me how much it meant to him, and if that wasn’t enough he drove 4 hours from their house to mine just to see me.  There was another day maybe a week after that visit that he came down and spent the day with me.  We watched ‘True Grit’, the original one with John Wayne obviously and then after that he took a nap in the chair in my room and I took a good nap too.  I know that sounds silly but it was one of my favorite days with him.

My grandparents were even here for Christmas this year.  They usually live in Arizona for the winter but they happened to be in town and so grandpa got to see most of his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.  We sat around the piano and sang Christmas carols one night.  It was so lovely because my grandpa has always loved singing.  About a week before he went into the hospital I talked to him on the phone told him how well I’ve been doing. I had been playing the guitar before my mom had come in with the phone so she asked me to sing for my grandparents.  I played “Hey Jude” and then said goodbye.  Oh how I wish I would have savored that conversation more.  When he was at the hospital in a coma my mom went to be with him and I asked if she would put the phone up to his ear.  I can’t remember what I said but I was told later that he wiggled his toes in response.  Less than a week later my dearest friend and biggest hero slipped peacefully away to heaven.

My heart broke.  It ached and I cried.  Late into the night I listened to old recordings of grandpa singing. I felt peaceful about his passing, which I had thought would make the grief easier, but it still hurts.  The person who helped shape who I am isn’t on this earth anymore.

As I cried something kept nagging at me, what was the song that grandpa and I sang at my sister’s wedding?  For the life of me I couldn’t remember.  I got up and looked in my music binder, where the wedding songs are separated out from the other music.  I opened it and was reminded that the song was Love Me Tender by Elvis.  As I read the lyrics, these words came through to soothe my soul in my grandpa’s sweet singing voice:

Love me tender,

Love me long,

Take me to your heart.

For it’s there that I belong,

And we’ll never part.

Love me tender,

Love me dear,

Tell me you are mine,

I’ll be yours though all the years,

Till the end of time.

So this is a long way to say I love you Grandpa Wally.

 

~My favorite picture of us together, along with his barrel racing 

spurs that he gave me a few years ago~

Looking Forward

     2016 started out strangely magical.  As a family we always eat seafood and do "cheers" with sparkling cider.  We set goals for the new year and say things we enjoyed about the past year.  We usually finish up around 7 or 8, and then some of my siblings went out to party it up.  New Years Eve has never really been a big deal to me, I've never gone all out or even gone to a New Years Eve party.  I guess I missed the boat on what the big deal was all about.  So this year I figured I would go to bed like any other night but I ended up staying up watching a movie.  At about 10 mins to midnight I got myself a glass of sparkling cider to toast to the new year.  Midnight came and I opened my blinds to see fireworks from all around, I still had the Christmas lights up in my room twinkling and as I sipped my sparkling cider I had a magical little moment and a huge excitement for the new year.
     So it started out well and has continued to get better.  I've gone to church for the past six Sundays in a row and it has giving me such a spiritual boost.  I also made a few changes to my room by adding a DVD tower that spins so it can take up less room but hold my whole movie collection, a new bedspread and most excitedly, a picture collage.  I made the collage on a very good day and so now when I see it reminds me of feeling well and optimistic.  I put some pictures of myself that I love, some lovely quotes and a picture of the temple.

     The bedspread is a little 80's floral.  It actually reminds me of the wallpaper that was in my parents bedroom in our old house.  I love it, it seems grown up, minus the stuffed animals haha.

     Here's a close up of the collage.  I like that its still open enough to add to and put up things that I want to envision for my life:)
     This week I was able to go to an appointment with a doctor who sees a lot of other P.O.T.S. patients.  There isn't actually such thing as a P.O.T.S. specialist but he is the closest you can get to it.  Since he has so much experience with other people dealing with my same illness I was excited to see what he had to say.  The appointment went well and he gave me a more in-depth explanation of P.O.T.S and how it works, or rather doesn't work.  He had some new ideas about what to do and explained why I really do need to follow through with other ideas.  One thing that I'm not exactly excited for is raising the head of my bed eight inches.  It puts my bed on a significant slant and isn't very comfortable for sleeping.  I've tried it once before but I hated it so much that I gave up and had dad put it back flat.  Dr. Colby explained that having it on the slant will force my autonomic nervous system to work out through the night which also explains why it was so difficult to sleep like that.  So instead of getting to lay down, rest and go to sleep, my body is still working hard trying to bring blood up from my feet to my head.  I'm trying to have a good attitude about it but honestly I've been a grumpy mess.  I don't know if people (including myself) realise how hard it is to live with someone who has a chronic illness; throw in a lot of irritability and it becomes pretty impossible.  I am going to try my absolute best to follow doctors orders and at the same time not be too grumpy.  It helps that the plan sounds hopeful.  I feel like doing all the things at once may help, so I'm really excited about that.
     Other than all that I've been knitting and playing the guitar.  Playing the guitar has been so therapeutic and I love it:)  It's been awhile since I've been able to sit up long enough and sing along as I play, its another way that I'm proving to myself that I'm getting better!   

A Look Back

     Just like most of your Facebook and Instagram friends I've been looking back at 2015 and evaluating what's gone on this year.  2015 was harder than I had imagined (I don't think we often imagine a hard upcoming year when talking about New Years resolutions), but it was incredibly rewarding as well. Learning more and more about myself is helping me become more self aware and self confidant.  Not exactly the typical "I'm going to travel the world and find myself" year that would have been fun, but at least for now I haven't had much interest in traveling so finding myself from home works.
     2015 started off with me being recently diagnosed with P.O.T.S. (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome).  I was doing better with being able to walk around the house and such but then went downhill for some reason that I can't quite remember.  I'll spare you a long story about the day to day hardship of it all, especially because if you're reading this you may have followed my journey through this very blog, but simply put it got difficult.  The good thing about it is that on most days I felt like it was all going to get better just around the corner, which is probably because this is a saying my mom has used for my entire life. 
     I recently realised two deeply conflicting thoughts that I have about health.  First off is that I have, on numerous occasions, forgotten about being sick.  I kid you not, I have woken up many a time and started going about my day just to be rudely interrupted by nausea and passing out.  I've woken up on the floor of the bathroom completely baffled by passing out, the thought "but I'm not sick!" ringing through my head.  Just the other day I tried to pull myself up onto the counter so my dad could wash my hair in the sink (thanks dad:) and ended up laughing so hard at how my arms quivered because I'm much weaker than I had anticipated.  There was a time in my life were I was considerably strong, and though that time in comparison was brief I find myself identifying with it more than my weakened state that has been a larger part of my life.  The second thought that contradicts the first is that a small part of me worries what my identity will be without sickness.  The good part about that is I'm see a future where sickness won't be such a integral part of who I am but, the part I don't love admitting is that in the past it has been.  Who will I be without sickness?  It may seem silly to worry about but think about losing something about yourself, whether it be good or bad, doesn't it change things?  I've been in a role of dependency, a role of only getting to live out parts of my whole self, a role of being a second class citizen to my body's rules.  I hope that doesn't sound victimizing or 'oh pity me'.  I just mean that there are these parts of who I am that have taken a backseat because of being in survival mode.  It's exciting and also a little scary to dig deep into the messy backseat and find those pieces of myself. 
     This year I feel that I've grown a lot and learned more than I could've imagined.  I've been able to reteach myself how to knit and enjoy countless hours of creativity.  I've somehow ignited an excitement of learning, especially in the subject of history.  I have a deeper testimony in Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father as I finished the Book of Mormon for the first time.  I've come to understand my worth and importance on a deeper level.  I have relearned how much I truly love writing and how doing it more is so beneficial to my mental well being.  I have a greater appreciation for every good day, every good hour, and every good minute in my life.  In short life is good:) So here's to a year of finding/loving/becoming my most authentic self! Bring it on 2016!

T'was a Merry Little Christmas

     If you've been following my blog posts in the last few months you'll know that I'm doing much better, it's amazing what retraining your brain will do (NueroFeedback).  Thanks to my motivation to watch Ellen almost everyday I've been going downstairs more, even more than once daily somedays:)  The past two Sundays I've been able to go to church which I haven't been able to do in about a year.  To be honest I was more nervous than I care to admit to do all the socializing that comes with going to church, but it went so well and it was lovely to see all the amazing in my ward who I know have been praying for me.  After the first time back I was excited to go back, especially in my new dress.
     This year my grandparents on my mothers side were here for the days leading up to the 25th and Christmas Eve for the first time in years.  I was so glad to have them around and celebrate with them.  My grandpa and I share a really special bond.  Maybe it's because whenever we visited his farm as kids I would help him with chores and with the horses, or maybe its because I was crazy enough to get on a horse that hadn't been ridden and got myself bucked off, proving my "spunkiness".  No matter the reason, my grandpa and I are very close so when I asked for a Priesthood blessing he gladly obliged.  After an amazing blessing I looked up to see tears in my grandpa's eyes, my tough, cowboy, John Wayne loving, 88 year old grandpa who I have only seen cry twice in my life before.  Obviously I was crying too as I was able to stand and give my grandpa a hug.  Its been years since I've been able to hug him or anyone else while standing.  I've found that everyone is shorter than I expected.  I stayed up late not because I was too sick to sleep but because I was so well and I didn't want to miss out on it for a second. 
     On Christmas Eve we always open one present, as many other families do.  I had been very sneaky this year about my gifts to my parents and I was so proud of myself.  My dad has these 30 year old slippers that my mom's grandma made for him when they were first married.  My mom had several pairs of the same slippers over the years but she wore through them faster.  My dad's are pretty destroyed but he still wears them.  So my mom suggested that I knit him another pair and then in an entirely different conversation my dad suggested that I knit some of the same slippers for my mom.  So I proceeded to knit these slippers and keep them a secret from both parents, which was not easy seeing as we all live under the same roof.  So I knitted dad's in a cherry red (the same as the ones he had before) while he was at work and mom's in a deep purple in the hours that she was working in the other room from home.  I also knitted most of my other gifts that I gave out; a warm headband with a bow for my sister, a beanie for my brother and pair of elf inspired slippers for my sister.  For my little brother I got a Good Mythical Morning t-shirt because there wasn't anything much to knit that he would use.  When I finished all this knitting I realised that I still had a few weeks until Christmas so I went on to knit another pair of slippers for myself.  I wrapped them up and opened them on Christmas Eve after my parents opened theirs first.  Normally I wouldn't give myself a present, obviously, but I wanted to wear them on Christmas morning:)  Both my mom and my dad were completely surprised and very happy with the slippers.  And the other plus was that my grandparents were there to see the slippers inspired by my grandpa's mother, they were pretty surprised by them too. Here's some pictures of mom's slippers and mine as well:

     I also had time to make some other stuff as well.  I've been making baby booties for awhile so I thought I'd try other baby things because they're easy and quick, so I did some newborn hats, followed by this softie:

    After that I went a little further and did a couple baby sweaters!  I really like how they turned out, though I'm not quite finished.  I still need to add buttons, otherwise those button holes I knitted in them would be a waste.  I'm also debating whether or not to add pockets on the beige one...

     Lastly I started a baby blanket on the Friday before Christmas and had it done by Tuesday!  This picture doesn't really display its size but I think its quite a bit of knitting for 5 days.  When it is all laid out it looks like it has some stripes because some rows of the stitches are small and some rows are larger.  I tied it up with a red ribbon and will probably keep it in my cedar chest.

     Having grandparents visit, all my siblings including my brother home from Boston and extended family from my dad's side all close by makes it feel so festive!  I've already started using some of the gifts I got, and I'm excited for the others.  For example I'm typing this on my new laptop (Santa and I went halvsies on a black Friday deal:), listening to Justin Beiber's new album (haters gonna hate...but don't because he's making some great music right now), while breathing in the lovely lavender mist from the oil diffuser I got.  All in all it was a very Merry Little Christmas:)

    

Grey Area

     My life has been all sorts of a roller coaster the past couple months.  I'm learning so much about myself though.  For example I found that I tend to process information in a very black or white, all or nothing kind of way.  The grey area is uncomfortable for me, its all that information that doesn't quite have specific place to be organized into, its not neat and tidy and it makes me crazy.  I'm also finding out that I am a walking contradiction of myself, along with every other person on this planet.  Contradictions bother me and so I've been rather at odds with myself.  Here is an example; A person is either well or sick.  See, on a logical level I completely disagree with that statement, but when I can't do things I associate with being well or I have to do things that I associate with being sick I feel like I can only be one of those things and for so long I've always been the latter.  So I'm wading through this middle ground, this no man's land and I can't label it.  I can't sort it into a specific place in my brain.  Logically, I know that's fine but at the same time there is this deep, sometimes irrational, need to SORT ALL THE THINGS!!
     So when people ask how I'm doing (the people who want to hear more than, "fine, how are you?") I'm not quite sure how to respond.  The truth is, physically I'm doing better and I'm incredibly proud of what I've accomplished recently, but it's...different? than I had imagined getting better to be.  I had envisioned a staircase that I would gradually ascend over time, occasionally stumbling and having to do some steps over again but all in all I would be going in one solid, defined direction.  Instead of that it's been more like the ebb and flow of the ocean.  Some high highs and in comparison some low lows.
     I realise that all of this confusion and grey area sounds like a negative, or maybe I just interpret it that way because its not a concrete settled thing, but I'm trying to make it a positive.  Who else has enough time on their hands to really delve within themselves and find out how to be more in tune with who they are?  To find their strengths and weaknesses and make them work to their advantage?  Not many people have the opportunity to do what I'm getting to do. 
     A very wise woman in my ward told me to "create evidence" that I'm getting better.  Which is just to say that I have a lot of evidence that I could tell you to prove that I am (or have been) so very ill, but instead of collecting that kind of proof to look at the things I'm able to do that I wasn't able to do before.  I've really liked keeping a list in my phone of the little things that many take for granted that I've been able to do recently.  It gives me a way to stop and think about the accomplish, remember it better and be grateful for it, however small it may be.  It also helps on bad days to look back at this list and remind myself that a bad day doesn't been I'll be sick forever because just look at what I was able to do other days.
     I mentioned this last post but one of my goals has been to go downstairs to watch Ellen at least a few times a week at first.  I've been pretty good about doing this, which not only makes me super proud of myself, it also motivated me to try to go up and down the stairs twice in one day!  Just this seemingly simple thing has opened my life up quite a bit, my world is now twice as big.  Proving to myself that I can do the stairs let me be more willing and able to do spontaneous fun things.  About a week ago I went on a drive with my dad and little brother to see all the Christmas lights in our neighborhood and surrounding ones as well.  It felt so festive and let me just focus on positive things.  Today my fun things were, putting on make up and painting my nails.  It proved a little difficult to sit up and put on make up and even though my heart rate jumped I was committed to finish.  It's nice to do differently things than just laying in bed.  I've also been working on Christmas presents and I just finished a Ken Burns on the Roosevelts, which was amazing.  If you're ever down and have about 10 hours to spare check it out on Netflix ;)
     So that's whats been going on in my life.  I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving and are enjoying a Merry Christmas season!